As the liberal media excitedly discuss the imagined idea of a big Hillary Clinton win, the commentators of Monday’s Morning Joe promoted New York Times articles on what to press will do in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s “reckoning.”
One authored by Ross Douthat on ‘The Dangers of Hillary Clinton” concerned: “the dangers of elite group think, of beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. Almost every crisis that's come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this establishmentarian type of folly.”
The article concluded that Clinton embodies the elitist establishment in DC against whom popular disconnect resulted in the rise of Trump. In his response, NYT correspondent Nicholas Confessore stated: “I think there's one problem that he's getting at right there and that Trump seized on, which is the elite in this country, media people like me, people that serve in politics in Washington are divorced and apart from the country in a lot of ways…People feel divorced and disconnected. I think Ross gets at that in this piece. ”
Later on in the show, co-host Mika Brzezinski invited the other NYT columnist Frank Bruni who wrote in his recent column: “The Media's Moment of Truth” that “Donald Trump is bound to lose the election and we in the media will lose the rationale that his every utterance warrants notice as a glimpse into the character of a person in contention for the consequential job in the world but he will remain the same attention-whoring, head-turning carnival act that he is today. We will face a moment of truth. We can't outright ignore him because there are important post-mortems to be written because he's a central character in the drama of where the GOP goes from here but we also can’t roll over for him, the way we’ve sometimes done over the last 16 months, chronicling even those speeches and rallies that amounted to sales pitches for properties and products, his reckoning comes on November 8th. Our comes shortly after that …”
Concerning this “reckoning”, in a self-introspective discussion among all liberal commentators, Bruni began analyzing the media’s financial initiative in its coverage of Trump: “up until now, there's a lot of question did we cover him too much, et cetera. He was very quickly the leader in the polls for the Republican nomination, then he was the Republican nominee. I think most coverage of him A, was negative and B, was justified by the fact that this was one of the most unusual candidates in history and we needed to take his measure in the fullest way possible. But, it was also fed by the fact that he was great ratings, I use ‘ratings’ to encompass both TV and newspapers. After November 8th, we lose our rationale that we can focus on him this much because he's in contention as I said in the column for the biggest job in the world and I'm a little bit nervous that the media won't quit him as thoroughly or as soon as it should.”
As the conversation on the future role of the media in its coverage of this election’s phenomenon developed, frequent commentator Mike Barnacle raised the critical question: “Do you think the post-mortem ought to include specifically the idea, the concept, that the media print and electronic actually cover America and Americans? Their lives. Lives of steel workers. Police officers. Firefighters. Emergency room. Why did Donald Trump -- why was he such an attraction to a specific group of Americans and why are they disappointed and will remain disappointed instead of covering ourselves in what we did or didn't do as a collective media?” to which the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein replied: “I think there are a lot of self-introspection and questions that need to be asked within the media. We are kind of - due for own autopsy report in a way.”
All these statements furthermore reflect the slight realization among some in the liberal media establishment that their role as objective journalists has become irrelevant to a lot of their viewers. This disconnect between the electorate and establishment manifested in this election especially through the Trump movement has raised a big question for how the press will continue to cover both Trump and Clinton after the election.
Here are the excerpts from the October 18th discussion on Morning Joe:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
10/21/2016
6:36:06 – 6:38:23 AM
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We are going to start with Ross Douthat. The Dangers of Hillary Clinton. This is what he writes: “The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarians unknown because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite group think, of beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. Almost every crisis that's come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq war, likewise the financial crisis…one can look at Trump himself and see too many dangers of still deeper disaster, too much temperamental risk and moral turpitude, to be an acceptable alternative to this blunder ridden status quo…while also looking at Hillary Clinton and seeing a woman whose record embodies the tendencies that gave rise to Trumpism in the first place.” Can anyone explain what those tendencies are? Because I don't think it's just her. I think it's Washington.
NICHOLAS CONFESSORE: I think there's one problem right there that he's getting at right there and that Trump seized on, which is the elite in this country, media people like me, people that serve in politics in Washington are divorced and apart from the country in a lot of ways. People who serve in the Senate are mostly rich. I think that there has been a problem that people who run the country don't always understand what it is like to be run in the country. People feel divorced and disconnected. I think Ross gets at that in this piece.
MIKE BARNICLE: I don't disagree with you. I think that there are far too many people in Washington that have been there far too long. The only jobs they have ever had are within the framework of politics. They completely miss the pain and suffering that so many Americans endured during the winter of 2008 and 2009. They still don't seem to understand it. They don't understand the concept of loss. So many people lost homes, incomes, hope for the future for their children. Their 401(k) Plans. These are the same people who put their children at risk of loss in the wars that we've been fighting for 15 years and it seems both in the Senate and especially in the Senate and House they just don't grasp this.
7:41:57 – 7:45:55 AM
BRZEZINSKI: Joining us now, The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni. Frank writes this in his latest column entitled “The Media's Moment of Truth: Donald Trump is bound to lose the election and we in the media will lose the rationale that his every utterance warrants notice as a glimpse into the character of a person in contention for the consequential job in the world but he will remain the same attention-whoring, head-turning carnival act that he is today. We will face a moment of truth... We can't outright ignore him because there are important post-mortems to be written because he's a central character in the drama of where the GOP goes from here but we also can’t roll over for him, the way we’ve sometimes done over the last 16 months, chronicling even those speeches and rallies that amounted to sales pitches for properties and products, his reckoning comes on November 8th. Our comes shortly after that …
BRZEZINSKI: I think you’re 100% right, I think there was strange rejection early on and overcompension, I mean there’s tons of different ways to look at this. I think the media was in shock quite frankly for quite some time.
BRUNI: Yes but up until now, there's a lot of question did we cover him too much, et cetera. He was very quickly the leader in the polls for the Republican nomination, then he was the Republican nominee. I think most coverage of him A, was negative and B, was justified by the fact that this was one of the most unusual candidates in history and we really needed to take his measure in the fullest way possible. But, it was also fed by the fact that he was great ratings, I use ‘ratings’ to encompass both TV and newspapers. After November 8th, we lose our rationale that we can focus on him this much because he's in contention as I said in the column for the biggest job in the world and I'm a little bit nervous that the media won't quit him as thoroughly or as soon as it should.
BRZEZINSKI: Interesting.
FORD: I listen to Trump complain about the media and all of these moments. He neglects to – also remember that he got almost $2 billion worth of free media time early in the campaign and he never complained about anything. I do think your piece raises an important point. When you sever ties, how does that sever look? I still think he's going to be a ratings bonanza because to Nick's point from the outset, you cannot ignore what he tapped into in this country and to your last point, he is going to rebrand this Republican party and will remain a central figure in doing it.
BRUNI: That’s true in a number of other ways. You said ratings bonanza. That was not true of Mitt Romney – that was not true of John McCain before him. You go back to the other vanquished presidential candidates and there wasn't the same incentive for media and same economic incentive to keep covering them. At the same time, Trump without TV coverage is like a plant without sunshine, soil or water. So, he’s going to continue to make a bid for our attention. He's going to maybe still be a good economic thing for the media. We have to at this point say what is the public interest of continuing to keep our cameras on him and keep writing about him especially when he's trying to be so disruptive to and undermining of democracy itself?
CONFESSORE: I think off the campaign trail it will be a different thing for him. He won't have rallies and events. I do think he goes onto become major force in the party. He could have his own TV network but he will lead the Breitbart side of the party - I'm not sure we can afford to ignore that or what it’s going to do to national politics in the next four years.
BRUNI: We will see but if he forms a new TV venture or whatever – that is a bona fide business story that should be covered as such. What we've been doing to date is every time he hurls an insult at anyone in any direction, we're there to pick it apart. His political insults don't continue to be headline news if he's just forming a new network and that's a business story. We have to make distinctions about what is business news and political news and what the right proportion is.
BARNICLE: I don't disagree with Frank's assessment that there will be a post-mortem after this campaign. Do you think the post-mortem ought to include specifically the idea, the concept, that the media print and electronic actually cover America and Americans? Their lives. Lives of steel workers. Police officers. Firefighters. Emergency room. Why did Donald Trump -- why was he such an attraction to a specific group of Americans and why are they disappointed and will remain disappointed instead of covering ourselves in what we did or didn't do as a collective media?
SAM STEIN: I think there are a lot of self-introspection and questions that need to be asked within the media. We are kind of - due for own autopsy report in a way. I think you're absolutely right. There was a lot of difficulty in struggling. My outlet certainly among them in figuring out what to do with Donald Trump early on and trying to understand what the appeal was all about and I think as we go forward, we're going to have to figure out why we missed the story early on. I think the best parallel for what Frank is talking about is probably Sarah Palin after 2008 where she did go off and started doing her own media ventures. Had her own reality show, she was a Fox News commentator if I remember correctly. You had to grapple with how much of what she was doing was just for her own enrichment and political entertainment value and how much mattered from a political perspective. Gradually we lost interest in Sarah Palin. She never fully went away. I don't know if Trump is going to be the same phenomenon as that. Maybe I'm wrong.
